Subject: FW: It's called: "Is This The Last Two Years, Or What?" (fwd)
From: April <[email-masked]>
To: Ben <[email-masked]>

Is it us or what????????
						-- april

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 Ask anyone who has stayed awake for thirty-seven hours consuming nothing 
but Coke and Snickers bars and staring into a green CRT screen, if there is 
anything glamorous about the world of computer programming. Look deep 
into his  bloodshot eyes, and try to detect any signs of joy among the 
red streaks. Then, just for kicks, ask him why he does what he does, 
despite all the pain it's causing. The most positive answer you'll get 
is, ``it feels so good when it stops.''

Although computer sciences majors come in all sizes and shapes, each 
possesses that essential ``nerd'' quality which led us to declare the 
major in  the first place. Some of us, the stragglers, are only part time 
nerds.   Unfortunately, over the past three years, an alarming number of 
lifers, full-time nerds, have appeared. These are the really scary people 
who hang around the terminal room regularly, with absolutely no purpose 
for being there. People who'd  rather sit around hacking on a Saturday 
evening than lying stuporously drunk in one of the Dellys, or sleeping. 
This specialized breed of computer nerds, affectionately known as the 
Computer Nazis, becomes an increasingly large organization every 
semester. No one knows exactly where they come from, since no one has 
ever seen a Nazi outside of the computer center. Similarly, no one has 
ever tried to find one, either.

The leader of the Williamsburg Nazis, it seems, is a large Arabic slob
we shall call Abdul. Abdul typifies the model Nazi. Granted, he's not quite
as dweebish looking as you'd expect, yet somehow you know that he's not
the kind of guy you'd invite to dinner. He's loud, he's self-righteous,
and he can tell you anything about the computer system you'd never want
to know. Below Abdul are his Seargeants at Arms, Jeff and Andy. Though not
quite as loud as their leader, both possess voices which will rise above
all others at large gatherings. Jeff has a lisp and Andy is annoyingly
nasal; everyone in the department can imitate his favorite Nazi. Somehow,
they're always in your class. And today is no exception.

Larry, the instructor wanders in, dumps several folders on his podium, and
smiles at the class. Attendance is good today, for the first time since
the beginning of the semester. Ah yes. Today he is to hand out the specs
for the final program, an event not to be missed. Floating among the
seemingly carefree students is a definite air of uneasiness; a combination
of hope, anticipation, and dread. He passes out the assignment, announcing
that he will take questions regarding the program during the next class
meeting.

Simultaneously, two hands shoot up in the front row. Apparently, Abdul and
Andy, the ``Sunshine Boys'', have questions which can't wait two days.
You've got to hand it to these guys. They're fast readers, and seem to
zero in on ambiguous phrases and logical errors in the description even
before the entire class has received the document. This time they've even
caught the instructor off guard with their rapid fire analysis of his
instructions. You can tell that Larry really wants to tell them off, but
remembers his own Nazi days.

Two days go by. It's Question Day. Again, Abdul and Andy have the floor.
Seems that the instructor's skeleton for the program didn't work for some
obscure test case, and caused their respective programs to bomb. Larry
apologizes to Abdul, and makes a few witty comments to Andy. Most of the
class stares in amazement with the patented Computer Science ``Holy Shit''
expression hanging off of their faces. Have these two guys actually
finished the assignment already? We haven't had the thing for forty-eight
hours yet. Hell, I don't even remember where I put my specs sheet.

Two weeks have passed. Monday morning. The project is due on Wednesday.
Questions are finally rolling in from people other than the Sunshine Boys.
A certain anxiety begins to well up in the stomach as the deadline
approaches.

Serious doubts about finishing the program in time arise. Larry, ever the
entertainer, mentions that ``If you haven't started the project yet,
you'll never get it done.'' He means it, too. That night, the stragglers
tackle the machine for the first time in weeks, trying to make some sort
of headway, or at least translate the problem at hand.

There are two mutually exclusive techniques that are used in the early
stages of programming: The Software Engineering method, and the
ever-popular Brute Force strategy. Right from the start of our computer
careers, we are told that any problem can be broken down into manageable
pieces, and that these pieces can be linked together to form a logically
constructed program; the method used by Software Engineers. This process
is time consuming, yet incredibly simple.

Keep the pieces as small as possible, construct each one separately, get
it to working, and plug it in. ``This method can be applied to any problem
you'll ever have to solve, in the field of computer science, or in real
life situations,'' says the textbook. Sure. If you've got the time.

Brute Force can similarly be applied to any real life situation, and in
the early stages it's quicker than the Software Engineering method. It's
instinctive, spontaneous, and produces concrete results almost
immediately. Read the problem, get a general idea of where you're headed,
and head there. Start simply, and then build the sucker. If you don't
understand something, ignore it. If it doesn't work, throw it out. Assume
you know more about what you're doing than you actually do. It's kind of
like picking a nice living room set, and building a house around it.

Apparently, Brute Force is the way to go this time around. The first few
pot shots at the problem miss their target completely, but finally pieces
begin to fit together. Granted, there's no central structure here yet, but
we've definitely bought the living room set. And, with a little bit of
pushing and bending of good programming rules, we seem to have built the
fireplace and part of the upstairs bedroom. So far so good. Who says we
can't finish this in two days? Get a printout, go home, have a beer and
watch David Letterman.

The Letterman show appears to have been a tactical error. Brute Force has 
come to its inevitable halt, and the deadline is tomorrow. Bits and pieces
of the program are working just fine, but the major chunks are still in
shambles. The program has to be finished within the next eighteen hours.
We have not choice but to begin the Caffeine Airlift.

If it weren't for caffeine, many of us computer science majors would have
died back in sophomore year. Sometimes, there just aren't enough waking
hours in the day to accomplish everything that has to be done. The logical
solution is to eliminate some of the sleeping hours, through carefully
measured doses of coffee and Coke. Time release caffeine pills were in
fashion two years ago, but turned out to be entirely too efficient. It's
difficult to concentrate on programming when your body wants to tap dance.
In any shape or form, the Caffeine Airlift has saved us all.

Once the body is properly primed, the work begins. The computer lab
overflows with other desperate individuals, all heavily caffeinated, and
all decked out for the long night ahead. Grab a terminal, and start
hacking. It's comforting to know that everyone else will fail this project
with you. The mood is surprisingly relaxed, and jokes about impending doom
begin to fly.

Ten o'clock. Eleven hours and counting. Condition: guarded but stable. The
three Cokes in your system are making your legs bounce, but you ignore it.
Concentration is the key. The room fills to capacity, and the jokes
continue. Of course no one will finish, but who cares anymore? This is no
longer a project, but a mission. Actually, you've made amazing progress in
the last few hours, but won't admit it to the others. More fun to
complain, isn't it?

Midnight. The Jello Hour. The Jello Principle state that ``no matter what
quick> solution you find for a given problem, it will still make you worse
off than you were before.'' Kind of like nailing Jello to a tree. The
temporary solutions look pretty for awhile, but are destined to fail in
the long run. After Jello hour, you get a whole new perspective on life.
The beard begins to appear. The empty Coke cups form a wall along the side
of your work space. You realize that you'll miss Letterman tonight. Short
cuts that simulate important program elements come to mind, are added to
the code, fail, and are discarded.

The best rule of thumb is to try something so unorthodoxly simple, that it
could never work. Odds are that it will. One thirty. You've watched half
of your classmates walk out in stuporous frustration. The die-hards
remain, chugging caffeine in lethal dosages and cursing quietly to
themselves. And suddenly, the peaceful torpor of the terminal lab is
shattered by the unexpected arrival of the Nazis. Abdul strolls in, flips
on a terminal, and talks loudly to his partner Jeff across the room. In
the back of your mind, you wonder where Andy is tonight, but the truth is
you don't really care. Abdul is amused that we non-Nazis are working on
the same program they had finished nearly two weeks ago. Jeff comments,
through his speech impediment, that the program was ``trivial.''
Eventually, the Nazis become engrossed in their own work, whatever the
hell they do at two o'clock in the morning. Abdul has found some new way
to amuse himself, and yells for Jeff to come over. Jeff yells back that
he's too busy. Everyone wishes Abdul and Jeff would die painfully.

Finished. It's four AM, and the damn thing is finally in the can. Smile at 
the amphetimized corpses as you leave, and wish them luck. The walk home
seems longer tonight. No cars. No birds. No noise. Life seems to have gone
on outside of the computer center. As you hit the bed, you know you're too
wired to fall asleep. It doesn't matter. You've won the game again. As
your body continues its tap dance, you realize that the process is going
to start again on Monday. No problem. Yeah, it's hurts for awhile. But it
feels so good when you stop....

http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~apowell/humor/story.html
This would be funny if it wasn't the truth.